The arcane artwork of Stephen Barnwell

Ship of Glory

A new print! I am moving beyond my political satire that I did for 15 years, and am building a whole new body of print work which is completely fantasy! This is the latest addition, Ship of Glory. The story of this image is that I was going through my vintage books about a year ago, looking for an image for Willoughby’s World of Wonder, when I came up this engraving of the ship’s hull. It was some kind of Byzantine royal barge, or whatever. As soon as I saw it, I saw this finished image in my head, full-blown. Sometimes my work evolves into the final shape slowly, and sometimes I see it all complete in my head. This was the latter. I saved the scan of the ship’s hull and put it on my mental “to do” list. A couple weeks ago, I found it and started this print. It came together quite quickly, taking only a week or so to create.

I just got the print back from the service bureau, and it looks great! It’s a 16 x 20″ print in a 24 x 28″ frame. So now it’s ready to send out to the galleries. (It’s already been submitted to two shows….) I’m really excited to be moving in a new direction with my work, I can’t wait to see what comes next!